scholarly journals Experimental investigations of turbulent drag reduction by surface-embedded grooves

2007 ◽  
Vol 590 ◽  
pp. 107-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. FROHNAPFEL ◽  
J. JOVANOVIĆ ◽  
A. DELGADO

Consideration of near-wall turbulence in the functional space that emphasizes the level of anisotropy of the velocity fluctuations not only provides an understanding of th causative physics behind remarkable effects of turbulent drag reduction, but also lead to the logical design of a surface topology which is shown experimentally to be capable o producing a significant reduction of viscous drag which far exceeds what has been achieved so far.

2005 ◽  
Vol 128 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jovanović ◽  
M. Pashtrapanska ◽  
B. Frohnapfel ◽  
F. Durst ◽  
J. Koskinen ◽  
...  

Turbulent drag reduction by dilute addition of high polymers is studied by considering local stretching of the molecular structure of a polymer by small-scale turbulent motions in the region very close to the wall. The stretching process is assumed to restructure turbulence at small scales by forcing these to satisfy local axisymmetry with invariance under rotation about the axis aligned with the main flow. It can be shown analytically that kinematic constraints imposed by local axisymmetry force turbulence near the wall to tend towards the one-component state and when turbulence reaches this limiting state it must be entirely suppressed across the viscous sublayer. For the limiting state of wall turbulence, the statistical dynamics of the turbulent stresses, constructed by combining the two-point correlation technique and invariant theory, suggest that turbulent drag reduction by homogeneously distributed high polymers, cast into the functional space which emphasizes the anisotropy of turbulence, resembles the process of reverse transition from the turbulent state towards the laminar flow state. These findings are supported by results of direct numerical simulations of wall-bounded turbulent flows of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids and by experiments carried out, under well-controlled laboratory conditions, in a refractive index-matched pipe flow facility using state-of-the art laser-Doppler anemometry. Theoretical considerations based on the elastic behavior of a polymer and spatial intermittency of turbulence at small scales enabled quantitative estimates to be made for the relaxation time of a polymer and its concentration that ensure maximum drag reduction in turbulent pipe flows, and it is shown that predictions based on these are in very good agreement with available experimental data.


2008 ◽  
Vol 602 ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. J. GILLISSEN ◽  
B. J. BOERSMA ◽  
P. H. MORTENSEN ◽  
H. I. ANDERSSON

We use direct numerical simulation to study turbulent drag reduction by rigid polymer additives, referred to as fibres. The simulations agree with experimental data from the literature in terms of friction factor dependence on Reynolds number and fibre concentration. An expression for drag reduction is derived by adopting the concept of the elastic layer.


1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-443
Author(s):  
HIROTSUGU HATTORI ◽  
TOMOO YAMAUCHI ◽  
SEIICHI TANABE ◽  
HIDEOMI MATSUDA

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. S. Vodop’yanov ◽  
N. V. Nikitin ◽  
S. I. Chernyshenko

2017 ◽  
Vol 827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bayode E. Owolabi ◽  
David J. C. Dennis ◽  
Robert J. Poole

In this study, we experimentally investigate the turbulent drag-reduction (DR) mechanism in flow through ducts of circular, rectangular and square cross-sections using two grades of polyacrylamide in aqueous solution having different molecular weights and various semidilute concentrations. Specifically, we explore the relationship between drag reduction and fluid elasticity, purposely exploiting the mechanical degradation of polymer molecules to vary their rheological properties. We also obtain time-resolved velocity data for various DR levels using particle image velocimetry and laser Doppler velocimetry. Elasticity is quantified via relaxation times determined from uniaxial extensional flow using a capillary breakup apparatus. A plot of DR against Weissenberg number ($Wi$) is found to approximately collapse the data, with the onset of DR occurring at $Wi\approx 0.5$ and the maximum drag-reduction asymptote being approached for $Wi\gtrsim 5$. Thus quantitative predictions of DR in a range of shear flows can be made from a single measurable material property of a polymer solution, at least for this particular flexible linear polymer.


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